CBI records Kunal’s statement in jail

A CBI team visited Presidency jail on Wednesday to record Kunal Ghosh’s statement on ‘specific input on the involvement of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool general secretary Mukul Roy’ in the Saradha scam.

A CBI team visited Presidency jail on Wednesday to record Kunal Ghosh’s statement on ‘specific input on the involvement of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool general secretary Mukul Roy’ in the Saradha scam.

A judge of the city sessions told CBI on Monday to record Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh’s statement.

The CBI team reached the jail at 2.30pm. Ghosh was brought to the jail office from his high security cell. CBI sleuths recorded Ghosh’s statements for more than three hours, said jail sources.

The suspended Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP has also written a letter to the city sessions court pleading it to look into the matter on how Madan Mitra, who is also in judicial custody, is enjoying privileges. Mitra at present is in SSKM hospital. Kunal Ghosh in his letter has raised the question on why Mitra is being allowed to use his mobile phone, why his family and his supporters are allowed to meet him in hospital. The court’s direction came soon after Ghosh appealed to the judge to tell the investigating agency to take his statement as he had ‘specific information’ on the subject.

Incidentally, over the past few months Ghosh has been claiming in and out of the court that the chief minister was the biggest beneficiary of the scam, and that he was being made a sacrificial lamb to shield the ‘bigger fish’.

“I possess specific proofs that would reveal the involvement of Mukul Roy and Mamata Banerjee in the Saradha scam. Both Roy and Banerjee are beneficiaries from the Saradha media ventures. Since I am in judicial custody I would request you to direct the CBI to meet me either at the court lockup, or the correctional home so that I can share documents to prove my point,” the MP told Justice Aurobindo Kumar Mishra on Monday.

Ghosh was arrested in November 2013 and has been behind bars since. “Ghosh has made a plea in court to ask CBI officials to meet him so that he can share documents related to Saradha scam that would prove involvement of Mamata Banerjee and Mukul Roy. The court directed CBI to record his statement in jail immediately,” said Ghosh’s lawyer Ayan Chakraborty on Monday.

Ghosh has already been interrogated a number of times by CBI. On Monday Ghosh was produced in court in a case related to Saradha Travels and Tour - a sister concern of the Saradha group owned by Sudipta Sen.

The MP, already suspended from his party, maintained that Mitra was also the president of the employees’ union of Saradha Tours and Travel, and remarked that there is a high chance he would also be summoned in the Saradha Realty case in which he was taken to court. Ghosh asked why was he spending time inside jail, while Mitra is relaxing inside the air-conditioned VIP ward of a hospital.